Polly Samson

Lying in Bed

1999. Virago, 2000.

A walk on Primrose Hill with his sister, both shivering as fresh snowflakes, as large and soft as butterfly wings, whispered to the trodden night's fall, which was already streaked with brown and corrugated in places by the early-morning sledges of schoolchildren. The trees like twisted ironwork against the cold steel sky, the entire hill hushed as London sighed, its traffic easing through the slush. The only other sound came from the two strangers, there, down the hill, at the children's swings

Richard is remembering 'the first moment he set eyes on Emily' and contrasting it with his present state, for which he feels her father is largely to blame.

Soon they were running and shrieking, out of the children's play area and up the hill, through the now swarming snow. They slowed, arm in arm, still laughing, as they reached their clandestine audience of two. The woman, he could see, had snow on her lashes; the man was much older, much colder, as his daughter greeted Richard's sister, recognising her from college. They all four went for frothy hot chocolate and apple strudel in the Polish café across the road